Make it Stick is one of the best books on learning I’ve read to date. It’s written by two cognitive scientists and one great storyteller. The book is filled with ways to be a better learner.
One great move is they open the book by defining learning, and I love their definition.
“When we talk about learning: we mean acquiring knowledge and skills and having them readily available from memory so you can make sense of future problems and opportunities.”
Learning isn’t memorizing something for an hour. Learning is obtaining new knowledge or skills that will be available to you in the future so that you can USE it.
The authors go on to say,
“To be useful, learning requires memory, so what we’ve learned is still there later when we need it.”
This may seem obvious, but it is important.
Learning and memory are skills like any other. They may be two of the most important and valuable skills anyone can develop.
The painful, snarky, eye-rolling individual immediately starts arguing that IQ is what it is and we can’t change it. So, none of this matters.
That individual doesn’t want to get better and would rather wallow in their position than try something new. That is an unenviable place to be, and I feel truly sad for them.
Now on to everyone else.
You can get better at memory and learning with training and by using better tools and techniques. You should think about it like training for anything else.
You can’t get any taller, but if you practice you can become a better basketball player.
You’re not going to win the gold medal in the marathon, but you can train and finish a marathon.
You aren’t going to be the strongest person who ever lived, but you can train to do 100 pushups.
Success isn’t being the best. It’s being better than you were yesterday.
You can be a better learner tomorrow or you can do it the same way you’ve been doing it. That’s what Physician Assistant Exam Scholars is all about. Improving your skills. It’s all about seeing that what you think are traits (test taking, studying, memory) are, in fact, skills. What’s more, they are skills you can get better at.
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Physician Assistant Exam Scholars
Brian Wallace
